]]>http://www.snd.org/2016/11/u-s-elections-2016-showcase/feed/0Taking on product and technology with the Institute for Non-Profit Newshttp://www.snd.org/2016/10/taking-on-product-and-technology-with-the-institute-for-non-profit-news/
http://www.snd.org/2016/10/taking-on-product-and-technology-with-the-institute-for-non-profit-news/#commentsSun, 02 Oct 2016 18:29:48 +0000http://www.snd.org/?p=36545Last week, the Society for News Design teamed up with the Institute for Non-Profit News for its summit on product and technology. The two-day event in Chicago brought together senior leaders from INN member organizations to learn best practices and new skills in analytics, budgeting and hiring, design thinking, impact analysis, technology management, and project planning.

“In a series of sessions, SND introduced managers from small news organizations to design thinking and gave them a new set of skills and tools to take back to their organizations. We’ve received some great feedback that the event was a huge help and that even for small organizations, bringing a human-centered design process to the problems they’re facing will help their organizations be more effective and sustainable,” said Adam Schweigert, INN’s senior director of product and technology.

Kyle Ellis led the design-thinking bootcamp as part of the Society’s SNDConnects program. Participants received an introduction to the problem-solving framework and were challenged to apply it to a series of exercises aimed at re-thinking the article page template.

You don't need to know how to code. You need to understand how technology works and how technology is made – @rsm at #INNproduct

Prior to the larger event, Ellis, Krauss, and Monson joined INN’s 2017 roadmap meeting to help key stakeholders identify focus areas across its 120 member organizations using empathy-building exercises from the design thinking process.

]]>http://www.snd.org/2016/10/taking-on-product-and-technology-with-the-institute-for-non-profit-news/feed/3Your choice: Presenting the 2017 SND officer candidateshttp://www.snd.org/2016/09/presenting-the-2017-snd-officer-candidates/
http://www.snd.org/2016/09/presenting-the-2017-snd-officer-candidates/#respondThu, 01 Sep 2016 16:23:26 +0000http://www.snd.org/?p=36342We’re pleased to introduce you to this year’s candidates for the 2016 SND offices of secretary-treasurer, vice president and president. Voting is open to all SND members and will begin on Sept. 26.

There will be a write-in option for each office. Candidate bios are below.

HOW THE ELECTION WILL PLAY OUT

How and who votes: The election is conducted electronically (SND members will get an email). Voting is open to all members. Election results are tallied by a third-party administrator, Vote-now.com LLC, overseen by James Claiborne, Managing Partner.

Voting deadline: Voting will end at 11:59 p.m. EST on Monday, Nov. 7The results: Results will be posted on www.snd.org on Tuesday, Nov. 8

Lapsed or non-members can renew or join before the ballot is issued in order to vote. Renew your membership here.

SECRETARY/TREASURER

Bonita Burton

Position Statement:Membership in SND is the key to a very special door. Walk through, and you’ll be embraced by a community of tremendous talent and incredible generosity. You’ll get extraordinary access to the rich expertise of industry heavyweights and the kinetic energy of students. You’ll meet kindred spirits who think just like you, and you’ll be intellectually challenged by radicals who think nothing like you. SND membership is rocket fuel for creative growth.
Members are united across disciplines, across publishing platforms and across the globe by a bottomless passion for re-invention. I am a product of this creative colony and a long-time advocate for its ideals.
The SND network is so magnetic because it’s so communal. People you may never work with professionally will invest in your skill development and cheer your career advancement. Many will become personal friends for life.
One of the best benefits of belonging is global exposure. The biggest leadership challenge for SND is expanding its reach among an increasingly complex international constituency. It will require an unprecedentedly aggressive approach to both technology and groundwork to send the message that every member matters.
What an exciting opportunity. Thanks for considering me as someone to help find and open more of those doors.

Bio: Bonita Burton is VP and Executive Editor of The Villages Daily Sun, America’s fastest growing daily newspaper. Her 20-year association with SND has heavily influenced her career, and the journalists under her direction are known for defying the status quo.
Previously, Bonita was Deputy Managing Editor at the Orlando Sentinel where she led the design, editing and photo/video teams into the digital age. She drove several cross-market innovations and was named to Presstime’s 20 Under 40 list of young newsroom leaders “who are proven change agents within the industry.”
Before Orlando, Bonita worked in California newsrooms, joining the small core team that redesigned the San Jose Mercury News and earned SND’s “World’s Best Designed Newspaper” distinction. She has also been a guest lecturer at the American Press Institute, the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and several universities.
Bonita served on SND’s board for nine years as a regional director, quick course trainer, competition judge and host of the annual workshop. She was elected vice president in 2009 and helped ensure successful workshops in China, Austria, Finland, Spain and Argentina. She also helmed the search for new headquarters, implemented financial controls that reversed years of deficit spending and co-authored SND’s first successful $25,000 grant proposal.
Work under Bonita’s direction has earned multiple SND awards, including four gold and three silver medals. But she says her best creations are her 10-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son.

Goals for SND: To ensure that Society for News Design serves its members and the global design community, our focus should be on the needs of our members–their growth, education and opportunities–as well as the constantly changing environment of our industry. While print design is still an important component of our industry, we need to continue to embrace digital and other new technologies, increase our knowledge and expertise in all areas of design and help our members lead the future of news design. This can only be accomplished with a commitment to our members and their futures, and our constant drive to be leaders in all areas of our industry. At the core of this should be the principles of design thinking, in both teaching–and in practice–within our organization. We should be open to ideas from all areas within our organization, giving voice to those just entering our industry as well as to those who have seen all of the changes in our industry. We should be collaborative and innovative, not afraid to create the path forward, but also not afraid to take informed risks. We should emerge as thought leaders in visual communication, focused on human-centered design no matter its medium. And we should support each other in helping to rise to the challenges within our industry.

Our initial goals as an organization should be:

• Better support our members with more opportunities to come together as a community. Provide an environment where they can network, communicate, share ideas and collaborate openly. Establish programs that connect younger members of our industry with more senior members so they can equally learn from and help each other grow. The connections, education and opportunities that SND provides should be essential to the careers of its members.
• Expand our reach to other areas of the global design community that may not be aware of SND. Create networking and event opportunities with other organizations related directly and indirectly to our industry. Continue to reach out to colleges and universities to create relationships with them and their students, who are the future of SND. Create an international community, seeking ideas and input from our international members, and more prominently recognize the innovative work from around the world.
• Develop a continual education cycle through events — not just focused within major cities. Our annual workshop should be the keystone event for our organization, where we look at our industry from a 50,000 foot view, focusing on where our industry has been and what it will be in the future. Establish affordable quarterly regional workshops that are more discipline-focused, hands-on and educational for members, where disciplines are determined each year based on the trends within our industry. Provide opportunities online for education, free to members but also available to non-members for a fee. Create new training focused on human-centered design, change management and how to better understand the needs of our audiences.
• Continue to develop relationships and partnerships with companies, services and sponsors. There is a cost to providing services via SND. Establishing partnerships with services to provide our members with the tools needed to be leaders in our industry. For example, long-term partnerships with companies that provide change-management services to our members at a discount rate. Rethink our approach to event funding through levels of sponsorship opportunities tied to the annual and quarterly workshops that will creating a pipeline for our organization so we can continue to meet the needs of our members. Host high-profile events to highlight the benefits of SND to our sponsors and help further develop our relationships with them. Further develop a business strategy designed to revamp our organizational structure and budget, focused on solutions that will sustain the organization and its member programs for years to come.

Bio: Paige Connor has been championing the craft of design — and the Society for News Design’s role in visually explaining the news — since college, when she joined Ball State University’s SND chapter as a student in 2000. She’s been active in SND ever since.
Paige currently serves on SND’s board as the Membership Director. She’s developing a multi-year strategy to increase awareness about what SND does and enabling those who benefit from SND events and outreach to see the value of membership and being part of SND’s global community.
Paige’s passion for helping members connect has put her on the front lines at the two most recent annual workshops, where she has been the overall volunteer coordinator. In both Washington and San Francisco, Paige worked to produce the best in breed design conferences that members expect from SND.
She continues that outreach, working with workshop co-chairs in Charlotte for next year’s annual event, pushing for a community of inclusion as the conference evolves and has greater emphasis on motivating teams and managing for success.
For her commitments and work at SNDDC and SNDSF, Paige received President’s Awards for excellence in volunteerism for both workshops. In addition to volunteer coordinating for SNDCLT, she is also working with various board members on sponsorship for the conference and SND as an organization.
Paige has earned SND honors for her portfolio, as well as other awards for her design work throughout her career, which includes stints on the cross-platform team at Bloomberg, design director for Politico, assistant sports editor for the Washington Times and art director for two magazines.

VICE PRESIDENT

Tyson Evans

Tyson Evans is an editor for newsroom strategy at The New York Times. Previously, he was a deputy editor of The Times’s interactive news team and a design editor at the Las Vegas Sun. He has taught at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and the d.school at Stanford and his work has been recognized by SND, ONA, IRE, J-Lab and Editor & Publisher.

Tyson has served on the SND board since 2010. He co-chaired the Society’s 2008 Workshop in Las Vegas, overhauled SND’s digital presence, led a series of bootcamp and Quick Course training sessions and helped launch, facilitate and judge its annual Best of Digital News Design competition.

Beyond involvement with SND, Tyson served as the programming chair for the Online News Association’s annual conference in 2010 and is the president of the Bridget O’Brien Scholarship Foundation, which funds international student reporting projects. He is a graduate of UCLA’s Design Media Arts program.

—

PRESIDENT

Douglas Okasaki

Douglas Okasaki believes that everybody was born to be happy and to shine in their lives. To discover what your passion in life is the first step for it. “I am really blessed to find myself in my work I love. The incredible life experience though my profession is the reason I am volunteering for SND. I received a lot from SND in terms of experiences, good memories and they are very rewarding and I felt the need to give back – to provide my time and efforts, commitment and dedication as SND volunteer,” said Douglas.

Douglas started as infographic artist in Folha de S.Paulo, the biggest newspaper in Brazil. In the same country, Douglas worked in almost all well known Brazilian publishing companies – O Globo (Rio de Janeiro), Editora Abril, Jornal da Tarde (Sao Paulo) and A Tarde (Salvador).

In 1996 Douglas became one of the first designers in Brazil to work online, at Universo Online, that time was the start of the open internet in Brazil. “When they called me they said you will work for web. It is completely different. You click and things happen …”

In 2003 when Douglas accepted to work at the International Press, a publishing house in Tokyo (Japan) and then Gulf News in Dubai. In the United Arab Emirates, Douglas became the first SND regional director for region 20 Middle East and Africa. As a regional director, Douglas spoke about the importance of design at conferences in Egypt, Jordan, the UAE and South Africa.

]]>http://www.snd.org/2016/09/presenting-the-2017-snd-officer-candidates/feed/0Texas voter turnout is dismal. Here are 8 ways to improve it.http://www.snd.org/2016/09/texas-voter-turnout-is-dismal-here-are-8-ways-to-improve-it/
http://www.snd.org/2016/09/texas-voter-turnout-is-dismal-here-are-8-ways-to-improve-it/#respondThu, 01 Sep 2016 15:30:15 +0000http://www.snd.org/?p=36353(Editor’s note: This piece was co-authored by Becca Aaronson of the Texas Tribune and Kyle Ellis of the Society for News Design. It was published concurrently by both organizations.)

This year, Texas saw record highs for voter turnout in presidential primaries, more than 4.2 million voted March 1. But with about 21 percent of its citizens 18 or older voting, Texas ranked near the bottom compared with other states in overall turnout. People who don’t vote are all around you. Hell, you may not vote.

Nearly 200 people applied for one of 40 spots in an event that was intended to be small, communal and highly collaborative. Each team was composed of individuals of varied backgrounds, including community organizers, designers, developers, journalists and students who brought unique perspective and subject-matter expertise to the effort. By the end of the weekend, #TexasTurnout was trending on Twitter in Austin, and more than 250 people watched teams’ project presentations, which were broadcasted live on Periscope.

The event leveraged a process called design thinking, which empowers teams to solve problems and test solutions in a way that is both quick and impactful — often taking less than five days. Design thinking was invented by IDEO, expanded on by the d.school at Stanford, and is utilized by companies ranging from early-stage startups to the likes of Google to promote rapid, scalable innovation.

Here/Say

Here/Say is a voting reminder tool that syncs with calendar applications to engage customers on issues important to their favorite local businesses. At the point of sale, customers have the opportunity to opt in for reminders via Square and are incentivized to participate via store discount.

The Spark

The Spark is a social media campaign aimed at personalizing the political and civic experience for those who are unengaged, feel disaffected or are otherwise powerless to make an impact.

Short stories of civic engagement will be shared through social media leading to our website, where readers can engage with these real encounters and learn important information specific to those stories.

Serve the Vote

Serve the Vote aims to incentivize business leaders in the food and beverage industry to encourage and ensure that their employees partake in early voting by giving them one paid hour off work to vote.

Texas Voteboto

Texas Voteboto is a text-bot that helps registered voters in Bexar County who don’t vote, particularly college students, overcome the logistical barriers to voting. It offers tips to first-time voters and also comes in a Spanish-language version.

Text2Polls

Text2Polls is an SMS-text service that offers logistical information on transportation, child care and other resources to help eligible voters reach the polls. The team plans to recruit users at politically neutral spaces, like food pantries, and help them register.

Neighborhood Vote Kit

The Neighborhood Vote Kit is a box filled with informative materials that seeks to empower community leaders to spread information about voting in their communities to establish trust in underserved communities. The information is community-specific, and the kit comes with materials for both the organizer and items to distribute to voters. Download the kit.

Spur 2 Action

Spur 2 Action is an interactive messaging service that targets voters in Bexar County, which has the greatest percentage of registered voters who don’t actually vote among Texas’ five most populous counties. The service would help people understand local, down-ballot initiatives. Spur 2 Action plans to reach voters where they’re at by advertising the service on coasters at bars focusing on traffic problems, and flyers at schools focusing on education.

The Texas Tribune is the only member-supported, digital-first, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

]]>http://www.snd.org/2016/09/texas-voter-turnout-is-dismal-here-are-8-ways-to-improve-it/feed/0Olympics Games 2016http://www.snd.org/2016/08/olympics-games-2016/
http://www.snd.org/2016/08/olympics-games-2016/#commentsSat, 06 Aug 2016 13:42:55 +0000http://www.snd.org/?p=36247The Summer Olympics Games are always an opportunity for news design creativity. Sports designers worldwide plan in advance special pages that must convey the spirit of the event.SND will showcase the best Olympic Games designs. Your contribution is welcome. Please send jpgs or URLs that showcase your work, in print or digital, to snd@snd.org

]]>http://www.snd.org/2016/08/olympics-games-2016/feed/2We know content management systems suck; we’re trying to fix themhttp://www.snd.org/2016/07/we-know-content-management-systems-suck-were-trying-to-fix-them/
http://www.snd.org/2016/07/we-know-content-management-systems-suck-were-trying-to-fix-them/#commentsFri, 22 Jul 2016 18:51:37 +0000http://www.snd.org/?p=36198At its best, a modern content management system can offer business intelligence, promote collaboration, and reduce friction in the publishing process. Unfortunately, most newsrooms — and especially legacy organizations — are held back by outdated technologies that obstruct workflows and don’t support new forms of rich media. Making matters worse, workflows are often so intertwined with the CMS that it’s hard to distinguish the technology problems from the human problems.

On day one, nearly 40 participants from organizations like Buzzfeed, Document Cloud, Fusion, The New York Times, and The Washington Post offered passionate discussion about the decisions that inform CMS builds, how the CMS can accommodate new storytelling formats, and whether building for tomorrow’s needs is a worthwhile endeavor.

On day two, SND and Upstatement led a human-centered design workshop that uncovered more than three dozen possible “How might we” statements for further ideation. Of those, participants rallied around five:

HMW use the CMS to better understand our users and deliver relevant content?

HMW decouple content from its presentation?

HMW facilitate interoperability between systems?

HMW build a CMS that facilitates collaboration?

HMW share knowledge and solutions of CMS problems across organizations?

“Content management systems are so important because we have to be able to keep up with the pace of technology to engage audiences and deliver content in new and compelling ways,” said Jennifer Preston, vice president of journalism at the Knight Foundation, and one of the event sponsors.

“Beating the CMS Blues” helped start a conversation about a serious problem hampering organizations from small dailies to online-only publications. Its a conversation that the Knight Foundation, MIT Media Lab, and SND hope to continue through similar gatherings that might lead to scalable solutions.

The Society for News Design is an organization that provides training and services to and advocates on behalf of visual journalists worldwide. The Society for News Design Foundation (SNDF) is SND’s educational and research arm.

Annually, SNDF awards the SND Foundation Scholarship to a deserving student interested in and showing promise for pursuing a career in visual journalism. The cash award is $2,000.

This award is open to sophomores, juniors and seniors at any accredited four-year school worldwide. The student must be a member in good standing of the Society for News Design. (Not an SND member? Apply here.) The annual award is renewable once, but recipients must re-apply for consideration.

The scholarship recognizes potential for excellence in print, interactive design and both.
• All applicants must be a journalism major or major in a field of related study with the intent of pursuing a career in visual journalism.
• All applicants will be assessed on four areas: talent, scholarship, service and character.

Submission Requirements

• Resume that includes a list of honors and activities.
• A letter of character reference from a professor or adviser that offers examples of your responsibility, integrity and judgment.
• A 500-word essay describing your accomplishments in the field of journalism and your financial need, if any.
• An 800-word essay answering the following questions:
Why do you want to be involved in the field of journalism? What do you feel is the biggest challenge facing visual journalism in the face of increasingly complex media consumption?
• A link to your online portfolio that contains at least eight and no more than 12 examples of page designs, photos, typography, illustrations, graphics, multimedia projects, and/or interaction design. Edit ruthlessly. This should only be your very best work.

All applications must be in English. Resumes and letters of reference should be emailed directly to SND education director, Darren Sanefski at dasanefs@go.olemiss.edu. Please send both in PDF file format.

Past winners’ testimony

“I graduated in December 2015 from the University of Vermont, with a major in Public Communication. I now design for the Arizona Republic at the Phoenix design studio. I’ve been a member and volunteer with SND since 2013, aside from the scholarship I’ve also won a travel grant to attend the Frankfurt conference. Winning the scholarship helped me fund my unpaid internship in San Diego last summer. It also boosted my confidence about myself as a designer and gave me a competitive edge in the job hunt. It connected me with Tracy Collins who ended up offering me my job.”

Aviva Loeb, 2015 SND Foundation Scholarship winner

“I graduated from Ball State University with majors in Journalism Graphics and News Telecommunications. I’m now the lead designer at the Memphis Business Journal, where I design the covers, centerpiece stories and other news pages and special sections. I also get to do some photography and illustration. I was awarded the SND Foundation Scholarship at the 2013 conference in Louisville, and since then I’ve been to the Frankfurt, DC and San Francisco conferences. I’m also a part of the SND brand refresh team working to update SND’s logo and other branding elements. Obviously the financial aspect of the scholarship was a huge help for me and allowed me to focus on my work instead of worrying as much about finances. That gave me the confidence to apply for internships and job opportunities away from my home, which allowed me to grow both professionally and personally. I felt and continue to feel grateful for SND’s contribution to my education. I think investing in journalism and design education is important because it then encourages the recipients, like myself, to invest in other students down the road. In that sense, the SND scholarship brought me closer to the design community and made me more passionate about my job. ”

Ellen Collier, 2014 SND Foundation Scholarship winner

” I’m so grateful to SND and the Foundation for these wonderful opportunities, and the recognition from such an outstanding organization means so much to me.”

Danielle Rindler, 2011 SND Foundation Scholarship winner

“I cannot thank you enough for this honor. Receiving this scholarship has inspired me to work even harder in pursuit of visual storytelling and interactive design.”

Sisi Wei, 2011 SND Foundation Scholarship winner

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]]>http://www.snd.org/2016/06/students-time-to-apply-for-snd-foundation-scholarship-2016/feed/6Free! Online course on the fundamentals of news designhttp://www.snd.org/2016/06/free-online-course-on-the-fundamentals-of-news-design/
http://www.snd.org/2016/06/free-online-course-on-the-fundamentals-of-news-design/#commentsFri, 24 Jun 2016 15:30:21 +0000http://www.snd.org/?p=36101Want a starter course on what makes for great news design? SND has partnered with the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas to offer a free five-week online course “Introduction to News Design” from June 27 to July 31.

Registration is open. Click here to sign up for this free online course.

“We’re surrounded by news and information. Good design gives us cues to what is important, credible and worth our time. It’s a fascinating field of study and a meaningful career path,” said Sara Quinn, president of the Society for News Design and course instructor. “This course was created to help journalists understand how good design helps us to make sense of world around us.”

Quinn will be joined by former SND president David Kordalski, creative director for Crain’s Cleveland Business, to teach this massive open online course (MOOC) through the Knight Center’s distance learning platform, JournalismCourses.org.

In addition to her role at the Society for News Design and as a professor, Quinn previously taught and led research at the Poynter Institute and previously spent 20 years in newspaper newsrooms. Likewise, Kordalski has worked in visual design in newsrooms in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana over a three-decade career in journalism.

The instructors will use video-lectures, reading materials, discussion forums and quizzes to teach participants about:

News design across platforms: print, digital and mobile

Basics of typography, color and grid for publication design

The important marriage of words and images

How photographs and illustrations are perceived by audiences

Best practices for using varied story forms to engage readers

Developing a strategy for type, color and grid that supports a cohesive brand

How sketching and rapid prototyping can help you envision news across platforms

“We are delighted to partner with the prestigious Society for News Design to bring this innovative course to a global audience,” said professor Rosental Alves, founder and director of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at the University of Texas at Austin. “Knowledge about news design is becoming more and more important these days as we move from traditional media to a multiplicity of screens and ways to present the news.”

Like previous MOOCs from the Knight Center, “Introduction to News Design” is divided into five weekly modules and will be fully asynchronous, meaning there are no live classes. Although each student can take the course at the times and days they like, each module will have a weekly deadline for submission of assignments and participation in discussion forums.

Anyone interested in principles of graphic design and visual storytelling is invited to enroll in the course.

The course is free, but participants who want to receive a certificate of completion must comply with course requirements and pay an online administrative fee of $30 using an international credit card. The certificate will be issued only to students who have actively participated in the course and completed the proposed tests and exercises. The certificates can be downloaded from the internet in PDF format after the Knight Center verifies that course requirements were met. No formal course credit of any kind is associated with this certificate.

This is the 21st MOOC offered by the Knight Center at the University of Texas at Austin. The Center was created in 2002 by Professor Rosental Calmon Alves, holder of the Knight Chair in Journalism and the UNESCO Chair in Communication at the School of Journalism of the University of Texas at Austin. The Center launched its pioneering and unique MOOC program for journalism courses in 2012 and has since reached about 70,000 people from 160 countries.

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]]>http://www.snd.org/2016/06/free-online-course-on-the-fundamentals-of-news-design/feed/1SND Appoints Paige Connor and Lena Groeger to Boardhttp://www.snd.org/2016/05/snd-appoints-paige-connor-and-lena-groeger-to-board/
http://www.snd.org/2016/05/snd-appoints-paige-connor-and-lena-groeger-to-board/#commentsMon, 09 May 2016 17:50:25 +0000http://www.snd.org/?p=35755Sara Quinn, president of The Society for News Design, announced the appointment of two new board members at the organization’s annual board meeting in San Francisco. Paige Connor, a UX/UI Visual Designer for Bloomberg BNA based in Washington, D.C., joins with a focus on growing and supporting membership. Lena Groeger, an investigative journalist and developer at ProPublica based in New York City, joins as an at-large director.

“SND is lucky to benefit from the incredible energy and expertise that Paige will Lena bring to the organization,” Quinn said. “We’ve already seen Paige’s tireless dedication in helping organize recent annual workshops in Washington and San Francisco. And we know that Lena’s connections in academia and with other organizations like IRE and Hacks/Hackers will help build bridges across the industry.”

The SND board of directors is a global group of volunteers dedicated to growing the Society, supporting its members and advocating for the craft of news design around the world. If you’re interested in volunteering or learning more, please reach out to Executive Director Stephen Komives at snd@snd.org.

Paige Connor joined the Society for News Design in 2000 as a student at Ball State University and has been active since. In 2015 she teamed with SND co-chairs as volunteer coordinator for SNDDC, where she received a President’s Award for excellence in volunteerism. This year, she worked with SNDSF co-chairs. Paige earned an SND Award of Excellence for her portfolio as well as other awards for her design work throughout her career, which includes stints on the cross-platform team at Bloomberg, design director for Politico, assistant sports editor for the Washington Times and art director for two magazines.

Currently, Paige is a UX/UI Visual Designer for Bloomberg BNA in Washington, D.C., and is part of BBNA’s innovation team where she focuses on experience design, visual design, digital strategy and qualitative research for new web and mobile products. Paige has worked as a UX strategy and design consultant for ResultsTrax helping to bring Design Thinking to the academic field, as well as various other organizations.

Lena Groeger is an investigative journalist and developer at ProPublica, where she makes interactive graphics and other data-driven projects. She also teaches design and data visualization at The New School and CUNY. Before joining ProPublica in 2011, Groeger covered health and science at Scientific American and Wired magazine. She is particularly excited about the intersection of cognitive science and design, as well as creating graphics and news apps in the public interest.

]]>http://www.snd.org/2016/05/snd-appoints-paige-connor-and-lena-groeger-to-board/feed/1#SNDSF: Thank youhttp://www.snd.org/2016/04/sndsf-thank-you/
http://www.snd.org/2016/04/sndsf-thank-you/#commentsMon, 18 Apr 2016 16:46:34 +0000http://www.snd.org/?p=35650On behalf of the Society for News Design, we want to say thank you to each of you who attended the workshop and to our organizers, sponsors, guest speakers and volunteers. We really appreciate your effort and taking the time to join us in San Francisco. We hope you found the conference informative and worthwhile, that you got the opportunity to make new friends and that the networking experience resulted in sharing opinions with experts, decisions makers and professionals from across our industry.

In order to make next year’s workshop even more successful we request that any attendees fill out this post-event survey. We thank you in advance for your comments and suggestions.

Looking for you in 2017

SND will return to the South for the first time in a decade, with Charlotte, N.C., playing host. Jon Wile, director of design and research at the American City Business Journals, will lead the effort, along with Steve Dorsey of the Austin American-Statesman and Kyle Ellis, SND’s director of strategic programs.

The Queen City, America’s 16th largest, is home to 2.4 million people and is considered the NASCAR capital of the U.S. We might be spending some time at the NASCAR Hall of Fame — stay tuned.

]]>http://www.snd.org/2016/04/sndsf-thank-you/feed/3SND Digital: Marshall Project, Quartz judged World’s Besthttp://www.snd.org/2016/04/snd-digital-marshall-project-quartz-judged-worlds-best/
http://www.snd.org/2016/04/snd-digital-marshall-project-quartz-judged-worlds-best/#commentsSun, 10 Apr 2016 04:26:18 +0000http://www.snd.org/?p=35595Digital design cues change every day as imaginative ways to experience the news crowd the landscape. Time is the variable that has not changed, which makes it more precious than ever. With that in mind: What are the signposts for success? And to what standards should we aspire?

Meeting the audience where it’s gathered: This is crucial as devices and platforms proliferate. As storytellers, publishers must be open to the idea of any platform where readers and viewers see their work, while understanding deeply how to tailor content to needs and play to strengths.

Engaging members of a community of interest: Publisher are in peril if they don’t understand what drives people — and that can be everything from personal passions to a brand’s voice and authority. Knowing who you are engaging is imperative.

Having a clear — often narrow — focus: Work that understands why it exists and what audience it’s aiming to serve wins. Extraordinary discipline is often required to achieve a clarity of focus, whether that a single-purpose app or the reason behind a long-form project or the entire mission of a publication.

Creating gorgeous, useful experiences: Consistency of voice and design across platforms is important and rare — and, yet, there also should be moments of surprise and serendipity. Having rich content always work. Having it resonate and work seamlessly is even better.

Respecting users by solving problems: Whether it’s how fast a page loads or the way a story reveals itself across devices, publishers have more control than ever in delivering on technology and UX so it’s a responsibility to engage in smart ways. Hierarchy never goes out of style.

Being ambitious and audacious: New technology — things like virtual reality and natural language speech — must be a consideration for publishers, which necessitates experimentation. Beautiful new ways of experiencing the world are in full flourish and are capturing attention. What else is? The idea of editing and delivery paired to save time. Some ambitions are in technology, some are in imagination, some are in editing. The best work toward all.

Acting like a trusted source, not merely a publisher: Focus on the interests of an audience, and be a source of information for people in that audience, even if that news is from elsewhere. Newsletters that don’t merely promote content, they get you caught up, and give you more to read if you’re interested (skim and dive), and importantly, they link to other people’s great work. Authority is expressed by reporting and writing — but also curating, selecting stuff that they think their audience will think is important.

Indicating what’s worth it — news that’s the most important can be finished: All the news that’s fit to read. (To link?) None of these ideas are particularly new – newsletters are pretty old-school. And links out are the building blocks of the web. But newsrooms have rarely done these things well, and these places are smart to do so. These are solid, audience-first choices.

Why we picked Quartz

Quartz exemplifies what a medium-sized news organization can achieve. The low-key ambition here is admirable and creates a frictionless experience.

The content and delivery inside this narrow business vertical are superb — and the team is finding unique, surprising ways to engage with a passionate community, by meeting needs for readers and advertisers alike. The team is also fearless at eradicating things that don’t work and experimenting wildly.

Visual distinction sets apart content, and lovely small touches enrich the experience being part of the Quartz community. All interactions are moments to be designed.

There’s a mobile-first focus on social distribution that keeps Quartz users happy on several emerging platforms (and the money follows, with 42 percent of ad revenue delivered through mobile).

Take the Quartz Daily Brief, for example, which has voice and tone, written by humans for humans, and is a terrific example of “skim and dive” as a way of understanding news in a manageable, finishable fashion. The widely read newsletter has become indispensable.

The new Quartz app is an unusual experiment — the judges were divided on it’s merits, but it does seek to be audience-centric, skimmable and dive-able, and has an end — it’s like the newsletters we love so much, but delivered in parts. You can be done for the moment. But come back an hour or two later, and there’s a couple more things that you really need to know, and be done again. Until tomorrow morning.

Quartz, which is currently owned by Atlantic Media, shows the kind of design innovation that can happen on a small team inside a mammoth media powerhouse. And that’s something we can all learn from.

Why we picked The Marshall Project

The Marshall Project has nailed every. Single. Thing.

The publication has an incredibly strong design language that works in every place it manifests itself — on the web, on mobile, on social, in email newsletters. All in a beautiful design vocabulary that travels easily from place to place.

The newsletter isn’t just well-designed, it’s an excellent example of the kind of publishing that we all should aspire to – brief and useful, with way-pointing to deeper dives if needed. The email hosts cover their beats, not just their stories. It’s great to read, and informative even if you don’t click a link. (Unlike most email newsletters and social accounts — and homepages for that matter — which are pure promotion.)

The site itself, with incredible attention to detail, is a standard-bearer for the industry and a shining example of less is more (check out how they use that X!)

The Marshall Project’s special features are among the very best in the industry, and the deft use of illustration and information graphics is superb. The Next To Die is one of the best examples of using a social channel to inform on important, timely problems, while also appealing in its design to the underlying data in a way that moves you with its clarity and simplicity.

The publication has high regard for readers. The Marshall Project is urgent and respectful, insightful and contextual. This is audience-first design, at its best, and in service of great, important, difficult journalism.

]]>http://www.snd.org/2016/04/snd-digital-marshall-project-quartz-judged-worlds-best/feed/1Best of News Design: SND37 World’s Best and Beyondhttp://www.snd.org/2016/04/best-of-news-design-snd37-worlds-best-and-beyond/
http://www.snd.org/2016/04/best-of-news-design-snd37-worlds-best-and-beyond/#commentsSun, 10 Apr 2016 04:25:19 +0000http://www.snd.org/?p=35504Saturday night, the Society for News Design put a bow on SND37 with the announcement of the two winners of World’s Best Designed Newspaper. February’s Best of News Design Creative Competition judging narrowed the field down to 13 finalists.

Congratulations to the two World’s Best print winners from SND37:

Die Zeit

From the judges: Sophisticated and clever while taking risks in unusual ways — It weaves the reader through a narrative and surprises them on many turns. There’s a strong and robust design direction throughout, with each part complementing each other intelligently. It doesn’t fail to surprise and delight you on so many levels. You can tell quickly what the stories are about. It’s a joy to read. But it’s humble, not boastful or loud. It makes you smirk and smile as you navigate the pages. It proves that you don’t need to shout to take risks. Remarkable details that are so creatively intelligent.

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The National Post

From the judges:What a joy, like opening a gift. So many different formats and variety. It’s surprising on every turn. The typography is coherent and elegant. Even with interspersed black and white pages, the typographic palette helps to add color. The whole package complements each other. There are times when there are no words needed, the pictures say it all. Very emotional paper, peppered with fun and engaging packages.

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SND38 Print Competition Coordinator

The SND Competition Committee is honored to introduce Tim Parks as the 38th Edition Coordinator. Tim has been at the Omaha World-Herald since 2006 and has served as Deputy News and Presentation Editor for the past five years. Parks has been either a facilitator, team captain or judge at SND’s print competitions since 2010. He has also spoken at SND quick courses and helped design the 28th annual Best of News Design book. Parks was the 2009 Sports Designer of the Year. His work has been recognized by several design organizations and he has won multiple SND medals and awards.

Tim will oversee judge selection and assist the competition committee in creating the 38th Edition Call For Entries and organizing and executing the 38th judging, scheduled for February 2017. You can reach Tim with questions, concerns and judge nominations via email at tim.parks42 (at) gmail.com.

An announcement from the Competition Committee

SND38 judging will take place in St. Petersburg, Fla., at the St. Petersburg Coliseum, bringing to a close three decades of partnership with Syracuse University and Drumlins Country Club. The move is made with efficiency in mind, as winter travel to Syracuse, always unpredictable, has become increasingly challenging in recent years as airlines have consolidated and cut back. We will avail ourselves of access to Poynter to offer more visible training options, and we will reaffirm SND’s commitment to making students a part of judging, as parting ways with the faculty and student body in Syracuse is both a difficult and challenging decision. Details will be shared in the coming weeks, and a proper farewell to Syracuse will also be offered.

And finally, 2016 will be a major year for national and international news, and 2016 will be an important year for the society and for the Best of News Design. With increased participation in SND38, it has potential to be a banner year. Our intention is to have the Call for Entries ready early this year, to create more opportunities and avenues for entering, and we are asking members to commit to promotion, social media sharing, and generally spreading the word when the time comes.